It’s
amazing! They’re alive! They can still holler and moan. The libertarian
businessmen got their feelings hurt and are coming out of hibernation
to tell me how naughty I am to refuse to kneel at the altar of their
guru, Ludwig von Mises.

We
never heard a peep from them when we told them their sons and daughters
were being mentally seduced and abused in the schools. We never heard
a peep from them when we documented how sociology was being used to
build up hate between parent and child, husband and wife, black and
white, worker and employer, rich and poor. We never heard a peep from
them when we have asked them to help inform others about regional government,
or help those who are carrying the personal and financial burdens of
the very real war for survival we are in. We never heard a peep from
them when we explained how universities are being used to take over
communities. We never heard a peep from them when we commented on the
quackery of the National Council on Drug abuse in drug abuse programs.
We never heard a peep from them when we told about citizens asking the
legislature for an investigation of regional government. We never heard
a peep from them when regionalizers began busing children across the
city and county for schooling. But NOW hear the libertarians cackle.

St.
Ludwig has been rejected! Come, we must defend his honor! Tell that
naughty lady she has to take it all back.

Why?
Why have those libertarians suddenly come to life? What is it they care
about? What is there to protect for those who will not protect their
homes, their friendly relationships, their constitutional government?
What do libertarians care about?

Could
it be they are afraid their pornography, fornication and adultery license
is being threatened? Are the afraid we might not sanction the actions
of those who behave like barracuda in business? Are they afraid they
might not be congratulated for putting grandma to rest if she gets to
be a pest? Are they afraid we might contradict them when they tell children
that pot smoking, abortion, and perversion are precious human rights?
Here is what some libertarians are saying:

1-
If you are truly an advocate of individualism you have, by your denunciation
of Von Mises in the June 8, 1978 WISCONSIN REPORT, denied yourself access
to the greatest mind in the field of free enterprise. There is no question
that Von Mises has done more to destroy the economics of socialism,
totalitarianism and controlled economy than any other single free market
thinker.

2-
Your out-of-context misinterpretations and misrepresentations were quoted
from a little known and now out-of-print pamphlet. Read again if you
are for liberty and individualism. Keep up the good work if you’re
a totalitarian. –You are winning.

3-
For the past year I have read with interest and often amazement your
various columns – interest due to the unusual philosophic content
in a small, local publication – amazement due to the obvious lack
of contextual perception and the often convoluted logic you use to attempt
to justify your position, particularly as regards libertarians. Your
column of June 22, 1978 is the latest unfortunate example.

4-
It must be remembered that the principle tenet of libertarianism is,
‘do not coerce’, which is the opposite of coercion and provides
only for defense, not initiatory force for any reason.

5-
It has been proven innumerable times that corporations can only persuade
by offering value in a free society. Only in league with government
can corporations force people into molds. . . Your latest column once
again indicated an appalling lack of knowledge of the difference between
government and economic power.

ANSWERS
TO LIBERTARIAN COMMENTS

1-
If you were truly an advocate of individualism you wouldn’t need
Von Mises to provide you with justification. An individual who has to
argue about his ‘right’ to individualism has lost it already.
He is like the virgin who gives reasons for maintaining her virtue.
There is always an excuse to give in. Once she deliberates she is lost.
The teaching of economics may be fine to help students prosper in businesses
or professions, or in managing their personal finances; but don’t
betray them by telling them their very freedom depends on the teachings
of economics. And above all, don’t assign them a Chamber of Commerce
defender like Von Mises, who has declared the terms of surrender—proof
that totalitarianism is more productive—long before the battle
has been lost. So much is done by machines at present that it would
not be difficult to contrive ‘proof that managed men are more
productive than self-controlled men. As soon as the ‘system’
can prove freedom is economically useless, Von Mises was ready to surrender:

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“What
we maintain is only that a system based on freedom for all workers warrants
the greatest productivity of human labor and is therefore in the interest
of all the inhabitants of the earth . . .
“It is not on behalf of property owners that liberalism favors
the preservation of the institution of private property. It is not because
the abolition of that institution would violate property rights that
the liberals want to preserve it. If they considered the abolition of
the institution of private property to be in the general interest, they
would advocate that it be abolished, no matter how prejudicial such
a policy might be to the interests of property owners.” The Free
And Prosperout Commonwealth P. 22 & 30.

2-
Misquote? No way! If you would like to forget The Free And Prosperous
Commonwealth and call it an obscure and out-of-print pamphlet, I can
understand your emotions. However, the date in the copy I used was 1962.
Von Mises was a big boy by that time—in the area of 80. If he
had wanted to repudiate it, he could certainly have done so. Incidentally,
I don’t call a 207 page hardbound volume a ‘pamphlet.’
Concerning your hope that I quoted Von Mises out of context, that I
misinterpreted and misrepresented, I suggest you scout the libraries
and find yourself a copy of the book. You will find the quotes I gave
you to be the same in meaning whether in context or out. You will also
find that when Von Mises wrote the book in about 1927, his only criticism
of the League of Nations was that it was not strong enough to alter
national boundaries. He expressed the hope “that from these extremely
inadequate beginnings a world superstate really deserving of the name
may develop . . .”

3-
I am not at all surprised that the libertarians are unaware of the fact
that they are participating in a scenario that was written a long time
ago. J. S. Roucek, editor of a book called, Social Control which was
published in 1947 explained the phenomenon: “Social control is
usually such that its effectiveness is in direct ratio to the lack of
awareness on the part of the controlled that they are being controlled.”

4-
About the principle tenet of libertarianism, “Don’t coerce.”
– It’s a real clinker. Sure leaves the door open for almost
any kind of vice you can think of. That’s the trouble with philosophy.
The philosophies are all dreamed up to achieve some particular result
in the mind of the philosopher. He wants some simple rule to cover all
cases. From the time of Plato the main purpose of philosophy has been
to deceive. Plato admitted it, but most of the present day ‘intellectuals’
try to pretend they are contributing something of value to ‘all
mankind.’

It
is one thing to study philosophy to discover what people thought at
various times and to protect yourself from being sold shopworn mental
goods; but it is quite another to put your mind in jeopardy by allowing
yourself to be totally ruled by someone else’s pickings off the
dump heap of philosophy. I’m sorry if it hurts your feelings,
but Comte thought of renunciation of physical coercion long before any
of the libertarians: “The Sociocratic Constitution demands of
the proletariate that it renounce all violence as reactionary and anarchical.
Where a struggle is unavoidable it must be limited to the refusal to
cooperate, and in this, numbers may triumph over wealth, if their grounds
of complaint deserve the sanction of the spiritual power.”

Notice
it is only the proletariate (common people) who are supposed to renounce
violence. The temporal power is allowed to keep a little coercion in
reserve in case it is needed. Its general policy is to be that of: “rewarding
the good, rather than punishing the bad: It will prefer creating capitalists
to reducing them to poverty, and therefore will extend the practice
of gifts, without absolutely renouncing confiscation, even in perpetuity.”
Positive Polity, Vol. IV. P. 293

5-
World Economic Development is rule by a clique. From the building of
the railroads with the depression that followed, and the scandals of
the land grant colleges to the destruction of independent medicine and
education, I believe it can be shown that before government interferes
with business, health, education, or the people and their property,
a powerful business clique interferes with government. It has been the
same clique since the late 19th century.

Ludwig
von Mises was part of that clique because for nearly thirty years he
was adviser to the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. It was a good position
to be in to promote his goal of a world superstate.

In
the years before WWII the International Chamber of Commerce was putting
pressure on countries all over the world to give up their sovereignty
in favor of world economic control. It worked in cooperation with the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and International Business
Machines through its president, Thomas J. Watson.

When
you say, “Only in league with government can corporations force
people into molds,” you give the impression that you are ignorant
of the fact that it has already happened. The thing to do now is think
about how to get out of the situation, not philosophize about it.

A
congress of the International Chamber of Commerce was held in Copenhagen
on the eve of the invasion of Poland. Watson of IBM “presented
the proposal for an expert plan for world economic development and adjustment,
which was the final appeal of the International Chamber for world peace—a
peace based upon the acceptance of procedure and policies which would
have rendered unnecessary the movement of armies across frontiers and
which would have substituted therefore the increasing movement of goods,
services, and capital. “ Merchants of Peace, P. 133

What
the Carnegie Endowment, Watson, and the International Chamber of Commerce
were demanding as the price of peace was a sort of world communism under
their control. The Copenhagen Congress set up the following conditions
under which it said peace would be possible. It recommended:
“That the Governments of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United
Kingdom and the United States of America each collaborate, insofar as
this is not the case already, with their own leading businessmen in
a thorough study of the economic and financial condition of their individual
countries with respect to their national needs and their possible contribution
to the world’s economic:

“that
when these countries shall have completed their surveys, their economic
experts meet for the purpose of formulating a plan of adjustment which
will give all countries of the world a fair opportunity to share in
the resources of the world.

“For
the accomplishment of this purpose the facilities of the International
Chamber of Commerce are available if desired.” Merchants of Peace
P. 134

The
Chamber kept an office in Stockholm throughout WWII as a center of postwar
economic planning. On Nov. 10, 1939 plans for its Committee on International
Economic Recovery were drafted at the first wartime meeting of the Chamber’s
governing council, which was held in Amsterdam. Forty delegates attended
from twenty-one countries, including nations at war with each other.
One participant commented:

“To
see Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans sitting around the same table
at this moment was a bit uncanny, but somehow it struck me as indicative
of the Chamber’s fundamental strength.” Merchants of Peace,
by George L. Ridgeway, P138.

Among
those who had a large part in the Amsterdam meeting and in activities
to force international economic control and accounting were Thomas J.
Watson of IBM and Winthrop Aldrich, Chairman of the Rockefeller-controlled
Chase National Bank. (Aldrich was a brother-in-law of John D. Rockefeller,
Jr.). James T. Shotwell of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace was also involved.

The
Economic Development clique, spearheaded by the International Chamber
of Commerce succeeded in selling the idea of the United Nations to the
nations of the world. This gave the Chamber of Commerce the opportunity
for direct interference with the lives of the people in all countries
through its participation in the Economic and Social Council.

“The
altogether unique provision in the UN Charter for representation by
nongovernmental organizations at the Economic and Social Council opens
to voluntary institutions a direct channel of influence. The International
Chamber of Commerce, representing business and trade associations in
sixty-four countries is a pioneer among these nongovernmental organizations.
It has a forty-year record of collaboration with governments in promoting
practical programs for the expansion of world markets . . .

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“Today
the participation of the International Chamber of Commerce in the work
of the United Nations Economic and Social Council and its agencies offers
an opportunity for a fresh approach along the lines of the joint Carnegie-ICC
world economic survey, the ICC Copenhagen proposal, and the ICC code
of fair treatment for foreign investors. There is need for the formation
by an international commission of experts of a plan for world economic
development based upon world trade expansion .
. . “The twentieth century has developed institutions for planning,
coordinating, and even regulating many spheres of activity in the world
market.” Merchants of Peace P290.

Even
in the United Nations the business clique interference with government
preceded the government interference with businesses, education and
individuals.

Erica Carle is an independent researcher and
writer. She has a B.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin. She has
been involved in radio and television writing and production, and has
also taught math and composition at the private school her children attended
in Brookfield, Wisconsin. For ten years she wrote a weekly column, "Truth
In Education" for WISCONSIN REPORT, and served as Education Editor for
that publication.

We never heard a
peep from them when we told them their sons and daughters were being mentally
seduced and abused in the schools. We never heard a peep from them when
we documented how sociology was being used to build up hate between parent
and child, husband and wife, black and white, worker and employer, rich
and poor.